Grahame Morris MP

MP backs protest to scrap the unfair Loan Charge

Grahame Morris MP, Member of Parliament for Easington joined campaigners in Westminster calling for the unfair and retrospective Loan Charge 2019 to be scrapped.

On Wednesday 24th October 2018, campaigners from the Loan Charge Action Group (LCAG) travelled to Westminster to take part in the #STOPtheLoanCharge! lobby day and meet MPs to get the message across that the Loan Charge 2019 is unfair and will have disastrous consequences unless the retrospective tax grab is scrapped. Grahame Morris was one of the MPs who met with campaigners and is supporting the calls to amend the legislation.

Thousands of freelance workers face bankruptcy, anxiety and stress due to the draconian Loan Charge, which breaks normal legal convention and allows HMRC to go back twenty years, demanding huge tax bills for arrangements that were legal and declared to them at the time.

The victims – who include social workers, teachers, doctors and nurses as well as IT contractors – simply followed professional advice and submitted th

eir tax returns every year, with HMRC never challenging them at the time. Yet now they face life-destroying tax bills they cannot pay and cannot fairly appeal.

LCAG represent victims of the Loan Charge and the #STOPtheLoanCharge! lobby day is also being supported by the Independent Health Professionals’ Association (IHPA) as temporary nurses and doctors are caught by the charge with some nurses facing bankruptcy.

Many victims of the Loan Charge will be unable to work again which also ironically means that they will not pay tax in the future. Some will be forced onto state benefits, others have said they will have no choice but to emigrate to avoid the devasting impact of the Loan Charge.

It has emerged that neither Treasury nor HMRC did a proper impact assessment, failing to predict the impact the Loan Charge will have on those affected, on contracting in the UK, on large corporations reliant on skilled contractors and on the NHS.

Richard Horsley, Spokesperson for LCAG said:

“We are hugely grateful to Grahame Morris MP for meeting with Loan Charge campaigners and supporting the #STOPtheLoanCharge campaign to scrap this dreadful policy. The Loan Charge is unfair, ill-considered and will destroy lives.

“In the last few months, we are delighted that nearly one hundred MPs have backed our campaign to scrap this unfair retrospective tax grab that is already making people seriously ill and harming the UK economy. We urgently need a pause and a rethink and then for Ministers to do the decent and obvious thing and make the Loan Charge apply only going forward, not retrospectively, which is fair, avoids destroying lives and damaging the economy and gives certainty to everyone involved”.